


Demain, dès L'aube

by LilacsInTheDooryard



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: 1920s, AU, F/M, French Mafia, Gangsters, LadyNoir - Freeform, Period Typical Sexism, THE GANGSTER AU YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED, also ladrien eventually maybe, it's a one-shot, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7699867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacsInTheDooryard/pseuds/LilacsInTheDooryard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The premise: LadyNoir, a gangster AU<br/>The motivation: picturing Chat Noir in an old fashioned black velvet tuxedo and Carnivale mask<br/>Status: Complete.  Almost definitely.</p><p>Ladybug actually does have a name, technically.  Tikki turns out to be an excellent forger – yet another vaguely alarming skill Marinette has wisely decided not to question – and the various documents proving the perfectly ordinary – if somewhat crime-ridden – existence of one Lucienne Bourque were meticulously filed in all the right places months before Marinette so much as set foot on Rue Saint-Denis.  Marinette never intended to be a mystery.<br/>Ladybug has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demain, dès L'aube

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LillyBelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LillyBelle/gifts).



“Such a pretty little thing,” the man slurs, leaning close. Harsh yellow light spills over his face, outlining craggy features and rolls of flesh. A rich man’s prodigious bulk; a businessman’s impossibly soft hands. Banker, most likely. He smells overwhelmingly of opium.  


Marinette ignores him completely. She’s currently trying not to panic, and he’s not nearly important enough to register as more than a vague annoyance.  


What the hell has she gotten herself into?  


The nightclub air is thick enough that each breath feels like swallowing a mouthful of smoke and sweat. She hates it, hates the sticky-sweet bite of the cocktail she’s drinking, hates the extravagant smear of lipstick she’s left on the glass, hates the dim lights and the cloying smell and the bearded man on stage, crooning something soft and gratingly American.  


She can’t do this. Marinette is not meant for places like this – she’s a fashion designer, for Christ’s sake, no matter what Tikki says. She’s irritated and her lungs hurt and she’s been sitting at this bar for over an hour and her contact isn’t here. This is her first official meet, the beginning of Tikki’s grand plan to cripple the rise of organized crime in the streets of Paris, Lucienne’s first step into the public eye, and it’s already going wrong.  


“Hey, pretty thing,” the man says again. And then he puts his hand on her shoulder.  


All the tension in Marinette’s body snaps outward, and she’s got him spun around with his arm twisted painfully behind his back before she fully realizes what’s happened.  


A gap opens up in the noise of the club, as if everyone there has paused to take a breath in the same moment, and the man’s undignified shriek falls awkwardly loud into the quiet. The singer falls silent. Heads turn.  


Marinette freezes. She’s still holding her cocktail glass in one hand, somehow, so she brings it casually to her lips to hide how her hand shakes. She can’t bring herself to look up, but she can feel the eyes of everyone in the club trained on her. _Shit._  


From behind her, an unfamiliar voice drawls, “Well, well, have we a problem here, gentlemen? Does the lady need a hand?” Boots – heavy, she notes absently, with an edge to the sound probably indicating the involvement of metal, perhaps reinforcing the toe – begin to cross the club, angling towards her.  


The words are harmless enough, but the amusement in his voice cuts through any last scrap of patience Marinette might have had remaining. She’s had a long day, dammit, and now she’s drawn the attention of the entire damn club when she should have left quietly with her contact an hour ago.  


“Does it look like she does, sir?” she bites out. She doesn’t turn around, but she hears the approaching footsteps stop abruptly, as if she has surprised him.  


The man in her hand has apparently fought through enough of his drug-induced haze to understand what has happened, and begins to struggle half-heartedly. Marinette, of course, hasn’t paid him even a whit of her attention so far, and she doesn’t start now, only tightening her grip absently and shifting her stance to improve her leverage. The footsteps start again, and something shivers down her spine.  


“It’s hard to say,” purrs the voice, much closer this time. Whispers are starting to break out in the stunned crowd. “The lady moved so very fast.”  


The world has taken on an odd sort of clarity; the only thing Marinette can focus on is his voice, the smoothness of it, the way it curves itself over the back of her neck. The challenge in it. She takes another lazy sip of her cocktail – just because she can, this time – before taking her captive and spinning him around to face her. Between a nudge from her knee and the tight grip she has on his arm, the man spins down easy, ending up on his knees in front of her. He blinks up at her, too stunned to protest, and Marinette doesn’t feel like herself at all as she bends down to whisper in his ear in a voice that nonetheless carries across the room.  


“You forget the rules, _monsieur_. I never gave you permission to touch.”  


She pats his cheek condescendingly, watching a flush of delayed rage creep across his face, before she shuts his gaping mouth with a crisp left cross. The watching crowd gasps – half shock, half delight – but Marinette is only aware of the eyes boring into her back, the way she knows he must be watching her every move.  


Fuck her contact – it was only a small-time deal anyway. There will be others – better and more connected. Closer to her prey. She’s made enough of an impression for tonight.  


She steps over the mewling heap in front of her and starts to make for the exit when suddenly there is a man at her elbow. He is absurdly tall – partially due to the well-made boots that, she notes with a hint of satisfaction, gleam with steel at the tip – and dressed from head to toe in thick black, and what little skin he has showing appears pale and sharp in contrast. The upper half of his face is obscured by a distinctly Venetian mask, complete with rounded cheeks and two pointed cat ears. Everything on him reeks of wealth and street and a purely masculine bravado.  


Marinette doesn’t know him, but she knows who he must work for. Her throat closes for a moment – if it’s fear or fury or just a result of his closeness, she’s not sure – but a deep breath opens it again. Her newfound anger won’t allow her to panic, not even in the presence of one of _Le Papillon’s_ masked enforcers. Fuck him too, really – she’s done with this place, which has surely seen worse than a stoned businessman getting knocked to the ground. He has no reason to stop her. Surely she can just keep walking –  


“I didn’t catch your name.” He’s keeping pace with her. Dammit.  


She doesn’t bother to meet his eyes. “It must be none of your business, then.”  


He smiles, and the mask turns it into something feral. “The lady is so cruel. She wouldn’t, perhaps, be the mysterious L.B. of _Rue Buginette_ – “ Marinette whirls on him, eyes narrowing, and his smile slips into a smirk. “Who was to meet with one Ivan Bruel, half past eight?” He pulls a very familiar slip of paper from his jacket, pretending to examine it in the smoky half-light of the club. When she says nothing, he adopts a look of exaggerated regret. “I must apologize for your contact, dear lady. He has been…delayed.”  


Marinette belatedly attempts to draw her expression back towards something approaching neutral. She wonders, in the quiet corner of her mind that she reserves for the inane observations that sometimes save her life, how successful she is, if she has managed to tone down her fury into something that looks a little more like irritation. If perhaps her creeping terror could be mistaken for caution. “Is that so,” she says, with as little inflection as she can manage.  


The man says nothing, just hums slightly under his breath. He’s waiting for something – she’s not sure what. A stronger reaction? Another punch? Marinette is peripherally aware of the club settling back into its grating rhythms, of the figures standing just out of earshot and watching her out of the corners of their eyes. Marinette turns toward the door again, and the man takes a hasty step forward, though she notes that he doesn’t attempt to move between her and her exit. She looks pointedly at his hand, half out-stretched towards her, and he withdraws it, tilting his head slightly, and then he leans closer. Something about him changes, drops away, and Marinette looks at him, intrigued.  


“Did you know,” he begins, quieter this time, shoulders facing her instead of the crowd, “when you contacted him, that Ivan is one of those who refuses to deal with _Le Papillon_?” His tone strikes Marinette as bizarre, because as far as she can tell there is no menace in it. He sounds… curious. Intent. But not threatening, and that can’t be right at all.  


It would be best to deny it. Making an open enemy of the most powerful boss in Paris would be horrendously unwise, especially as she is now, unknown and unsupported. It’s not in the plan, not for months, and yet… She looks at the man again, with his ridiculous cat mask and his luxurious clothes and his oddly intense posture. She’s close enough to see that his eyes are very green. “What if I did, _Chaton_?”  


The intensity vanishes, and the flamboyant enforcer is back. He backs up, opens his stance, and when he takes her hand, the bow he drops over it is worthy of the theatre. 

“Then, my lady, I think we have much to discuss.” He gestures with his free hand at the cocktail glass she’d forgotten to leave at the bar. “Shall I buy you a drink?” And, then, of course, he winks.  


Marinette can’t help but smirk. She’s seen flirting like this before – and this street thug, however wealthy, has nothing on the models she deals with every day. Still riding high on adrenaline, she twists her hand easily out of his and steps back, allowing her smirk to stretch across her face. “I have a place we can talk – this one’s a bit noisy, don’t you think?”  


She expects him to hesitate – this is obviously his place, full of his people, and she’s expecting to haggle over a neutral location – but he only smiles. “And the drink?”  


Marinette hands him the empty glass and walks away. And – inexplicably – she doesn’t doubt for a moment that he will follow.

**Author's Note:**

> (The title comes from a famous poem by French poet, Victor Hugo, and means "Tomorrow, at Dawn." Chosen because it's pretty, dammit.)
> 
> The first fic I post on this site, and it's a ridiculous gangster AU for a French kid's show. What am I doing with my life?
> 
> This plot bunny ambushed me out of nowhere a couple of months, and stomped around my head like a tiny diva until I finally decided to sit down and write the damn thing. Do you know how much information the internet has on the French mafia? _None._ Researching this took much longer than it had any right to, seriously.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! I have more plotted out for this universe, but real life is eating me alive currently, so I'm just going to say it's done for now. If I do continue it, it will probably be more like a series of one shots than a coherent story.


End file.
